Aguero to Arsenal to Allardyce: The Gameweek Review

Feeling Fuzzy: Gameweek 6 Review –

“Clearly, I Jinxed Sam Allardyce”

Right, let’s get down to business lickety-split because I have a fresh copy of FIFA17 in my possession now and I am anxious to find out just how bad the penalty taking aspect of the game is after seeing evidence supplied by YIRMA, which makes it appear as though the taker can roll the ball in as slowly as one can to get it over the line, while the keeper dives one way, gets up, dives another way, and just generally looks like a horse’s patoot.

Speaking of large animals, I must make a sincere apology to Mr. Sam Allardyce.

Last week, I mentioned him in the Week 5 review column, which is rather incredible considering I am tasked to review the happenings in the Premier League and Big Sam has no connection to it. Well, now he has no connection to anything, unless you count being the current global leader of meme subject matter. I dare you to find another weekly fantasy football blog that made mention of Allardyce last week. You won’t. So, with simple inference and a nauseating amount of self-importance, I will have to take the blame for Big Sam’s sacking.

Frankly, I am appalled by his removal. For one thing, I have no idea when, if ever, I will see Sam smacking his chewing gum again. That visual, for me, brings me inner peace. Don’t ask me why. I don’t judge what keeps you from running around a shopping mall with a chainsaw. But, what really irks me is the reason for his removal from the England job. He “offered advice on how to ‘get around’ rules on player transfers. Really. The way I take it, he did not break a rule, he merely vocalized methods of manipulating them. Call me crazy (and you will need to if I go a month without seeing Big Sam chew gum) but isn’t that what life is all about? Isn’t that what survival is all about. Life is full of rules. In the business world, it is no different. You know who makes the most money in business? The ones that excel at “getting around” the rules. I mean, who are we kidding here? Every governing body we know, every multinational corporation, every top earning company of every product we buy…got where they are by getting around the rules. If anything, if someone is able to expose a loophole in a set of rules, they should be rewarded. Much the same way a hacker will get hired by a company who’d website they hacked. You found a gap in our security and were able to exploit it? Congratulations, here’s a six-figure job with benefits. Hang in there Sam. You keep being you.

Anyway, I suppose I should touch on what took place in Week 6. Or as I call it: The week you get Aguero back into your FPL team. You see, if you went into Week 6 without Aguero, then you have no business playing FPL. Plenty of things can go wrong with your team, plenty of bad calls can be made and plenty of bad luck can come your way. There is pretty much nothing you can depend on as an FPL manager –

EXCEPT Aguero!

I know this is true, because this week I somehow managed to get a green arrow, moving up from a 16k to a 12k ranking with pretty much everything else going wrong. I had bad luck because Brendan Galloway was a late scratch with bird flu or something and, with Luke Shaw also out and Stephen Kingsley kept out of the squad, I only managed to field two defenders, one of whom scored a zero. I also made a bad call, starting Jordan Pickford over Tom Heaton, which cost me six points. I got nothing from Etienne Capoue after starting him for the first time. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Romelu Lukaku and Michail Antonio did zilch. Only three players managed to score more than two points for me, BUT, one of those three was a captained Aguero.

So, what else did we learn in the last round? The gameweek started with perhaps the biggest lesson of all – Wayne Rooney is finished. While all the focus may be on the sacking of England’s manager, let us not forget that dropping Wayne Rooney, arguably THE face of English football for a solid decade, was the difference between an awful-looking United that fooled us into thinking Watford was suddenly fantastic to an effective-looking United. Juan Mata playing in the Number 10, the same Mata who Jose Mourinho had written off, thrived. I still think Mourinho is to blame more than anyone for United’s woes before the Leicester win. He undervalued Mata, along with Marcus Rashford, overvalued Rooney and seemed to be the last person to figure that out.

Poor Roberto Firmino owners. Liverpool attacking coverage was looking essential heading into last week and, after putting up five goals on Hull, that concept couldn’t be more true. Sadly, many pegged Firmino as the player to have from the bumper crop of midfield talent at Jurgen Klopp’s disposal. Against all odds, he returned nothing. Don’t feel bad, Firmino owners, and certainly don’t sell. There are so many points to go around amongst the Reds this season. He will put a smile on your face soon enough.

Why are Chelsea so mediocre? Yes, playing away to Arsenal is one of the tougher fixtures a club has in a given season. But Chelsea owned the Gunners for several seasons in a row and this one wasn’t even close. Now, they sit eighth in the table, behind Crystal Palace on goal difference. That is the definition of mediocrity – behind Palace on goal difference. Eden Hazard’s early season exploits are looking more like an aberration than a return to his old self. He has the dubious distinction of being the first FPL player to drop three times in one gameweek. Managers have seen enough.

West Ham, just when they appear to look really bad, are finding newer ways each week to look even worse. Yes, the loss of Andre Ayew hurts, but, they didn’t look this bad without Ayew last season and they have actually been worse with the return of Dimitri Payet. Don’t get me wrong, Payet is class, as is Antonio. That’s it though. This is when the Hammers were supposed to be racking up fantasy points on both sides of the ball, as they are in the middle of a kind run of fixtures. Watford’s kind run of fixtures began last week, and they were buried by Burnley. Now those who have backed the Hornets in their FPL teams are shaking in their boots.